The Somebody Files
by Cygna-hime
Summary: The stories of thirteen people, and how they became Nobody. Ongoing.
1. Primus

Xehanort was a visionary. He, who had no past, lived in and for the future alone. It was his gift to see the consequences of an action in advance. He could imagine the world as he wished it to be, and then figure out what steps to take in order to bring that future about.

He naturally became the leader of his fellow apprentices, for they could not see as he could, and what he desired they too desired: knowledge. But he made that desire into a plan.

In his vision of the future as it should be, he was the master of all, the greatest sage that had ever lived. And he knew, with a certainty he could bend the universe around, that it would be so.

What had Ansem ever done to deserve being called "the Wise"? Xehanort, who deserved it far more, took that name and all others from him. It was only fitting: the prophet of the future gave himself a past.

Xemnas could still rule by word alone, seducing or punishing as he willed with words and the magic of his voice and vision, the magic that had made him great before. None of those who served him (for in his mind even the former apprentices were subordinate to him as they had always been, though they had not known it before) would dare defy him to his face, for as he could promise them all that they desired, so could he withhold it.

Never did his conviction waver. He knew until the day he faded that he was the greatest sage that had ever lived or would ever live, and that all the worlds were by right his dominion. The death cries of his colleagues made no dent in his certainty.

He had never noticed when the chill abyss of madness had opened beneath his feet as before those of so many visionaries before him.


	2. Xehanort

The stuff I kind of forgot to put in last chapter:

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Kingdom Hearts franchise; I'll put them all back when I'm done.

Notes: This is following a set format, and I already have a bit written in advance, so it should be updated fairly quickly. It's mostly vignette-length anyway.

Summary: Because everyone needs to write OrgXIII originfic at least once, and I'm an overachiever. (The whole Organization will eventually appear, in various guises.)

Feedback: Is appreciated, in all forms.

* * *

"I forbid it!"

Xehanort politely refrained from arguing with his teacher in front of company. Ansem had always been quite clear on the behavior expected from his apprentices in public. To himself he admitted that he was not going to give that—that _person_ the satisfaction of showing his anger.

The way Ansem had cut him off like that, without a word of explanation, just so he could continue talking to that _rat_-! Xehanort was not in general easily angered, but his blood boiled at the thought. He imagined it did, at any rate.

Admittedly, his teacher could be brusque enough when dealing with foolish requests from subordinates, but Xehanort had never been on the receiving end of one of Ansem's repressive refusals before, though he had seen many, watching from his teacher's side and smiling slightly at the fools who could not see the flaws in their own plans. He was a student, it was true, but none of Ansem's apprentices were subordinates either by nature or training. And his was most certainly not a foolish request! The experiment was a perfectly reasonable extension of their last one into the properties of the darkness of the heart. Anyone could see that further investigation was necessary, and the method he proposed was the only practical way of going about it! (This was not strictly true; he had had to explain his reasoning extensively to the others, and even then Elaeus had looked doubtful. Still, Xehanort thought of it that way.)

As far as he knew, Ansem had never behaved this way about science. Certainly, Xehanort had never seen him refuse permission for an experiment without a very good explanation ready to hand, and none of the others, who had been with him longer, had mentioned it as a possibility. Either Ansem would give them permission to proceed, or he would help them modify their experiment until they could. He had never rejected a proposal out of hand before. (Xehanort conveniently forgot several incidents, including the time Dilan had, mostly facetiously, written up an elaborate proposal that they investigate why Braig called everyone "dude" and whether hitting him would make him stop. Ienzo's follow-up suggestion that they pioneer an operation he called an "As if"-ectomy had not been met with any more favor. Braig had probably been joking when he responded with a proposal that they find out if stretching Ienzo on a rack would make him a normal height. In the end, Ansem had given them all a lecture about the appropriate medium for complaints.)

He had worked for _days_ at that proposal! He had wanted it to be perfect, so that Ansem would see once and for all that Xehanort was a much more worthy successor than any of the others could ever be. He had never had any illusions on that score: Ansem's most worthy apprentice would succeed him in rule of Radiant Garden, and there was no point in pretending to himself that it was otherwise. That might hamper his chances, after all.

Xehanort did want to rule Radiant Garden, more than almost anything. To have that much power, that much control, that much opportunity! Oh, he would be a good ruler; there was no mistake about that. There was no point in ruling incompetently, after all. He would be the greatest ruler any world had ever known, and they would remember him forever as Xehanort the Great. Then it would not matter that he had neither family nor memory.

Yet apparently this did matter to Ansem, or he would not be refusing Xehanort this great chance to prove himself out of sheer spite. Any rational objection would have a rational explanation, which Ansem would surely have given or at least promised to give once his _friend_ had left. That he had done nothing of the kind only proved that his objection was nothing but pure spite and jealousy.

It occurred to Xehanort suddenly that Ansem might be, not spiteful, but jealous. Xehanort had understood and formulated the perfect experiment, not Ansem. He had been quicker to see what should be done, if Ansem had seen it at all. It was evident that Xehanort was on the point of surpassing Ansem, in this field at least and perhaps in more.

Ansem behaved as if he were afraid of the results of his experiment. A scientist, afraid of knowledge! It was ludicrous. If that was how he behaved when confronted with anything dangerous (not that Xehanort thought it _was _dangerous), it was quite possible that Xehanort was already the better scientist.

He rather thought he might be the better ruler as well. The people spoke of Ansem as "the Wise", thinking him a man of knowledge beyond belief, when Xehanort knew for a fact that there were things Ansem did not know (including where Xehanort himself had come from) and, now, things he was afraid to find out. No ruler who was himself ruled by fear could ever be a benefit to his people.

Xehanort feared nothing. The only thing that had any power to make him nervous was the unknown, and plagued by it though he was, he would not allow it to conquer him. He would know all there was to know, no matter how Ansem tried to stop him. And then everyone would see who truly deserved to be called Wise.

Xehanort feared nothing but ignorance, for he had nothing to lose but knowledge. Ansem was willing to take that away from him out of fear and petty jealousy over the student who had surpassed the teacher. As much as anything did, this made Xehanort livid.

If Ansem thought so little of depriving Xehanort of all he had managed to build for himself, then Xehanort knew the perfect revenge. He would take everything from Ansem in return, piece by piece, until he knew what it was like to have nothing. Then his erstwhile teacher would be powerless to do anything but watch as Xehanort made himself a name known throughout the world and beyond.

Xehanort turned on his heel and strode away into the depths of the castle.

He would begin by taking away Ansem's apprentices.


	3. Secundus

_Well, so much for 'updated fairly quickly'. Although I suppose this is fairly quick for me. I'm still writing a bit ahead of what I'm posting, though._

_Disclaimer: Characters herein belong to Squenix and Disney. I'm not making any money off of them._

* * *

Everything could be broken down into fundamental forces, into magnetism and electricity, friction and momentum. Looked at from a certain angle, the whole world was quantifiable, describable, laid out in Braig's mind as a set of equations and variable.

That wasn't, however, quite true. Not yet. There were still some things physics could not explain. Braig could not reach his mind into the center of the atom (for how could he perceive, when the act of perception changed the thing perceived?) or into all the vast emptiness of space (for how could he describe, when space was full of so much matter that could not be found?).

Perhaps, he thought, understanding the heart was the first step toward the one unified theory that could explain everything. Perhaps if they studied the heart, they would find that one small fact that would change everything. He had looked, it seemed, everywhere else.

Xigbar could still map out the universe, turning it into force and friction, Joules and ohms and Tesla. Only now he could make the leap between thought and action. What he knew and what he could do were one. He knew how much upward acceleration he needed to apply to reverse his personal gravity and walk on the ceiling (2g2(9.84 m/s2)19.68m/s2). He knew how to shoot, just like always. It was only a matter of firing angle, time, acceleration, and distance (Δxv0cosθ(Δt); Δyv0sinθ(Δt)+ ½g(Δt)2). He could ripple space, passing through the darkness he had always known was there unseen, and appear wherever he wished. Given a lever and a place to stand, he could move worlds.

He expected to fade. That was a fact as sure as KE½mv2. Xigbar understood physics, so he knew it was coming, slow but sure.

There was simply no getting around entropy.


	4. Braig

* * *

Ienzo shrugged. "Not everything is fair." 

Braig knew that perfectly well; better, he thought, than Ienzo did. Much of life was unfair. Science, however, had always been an exception. Science never changed the rules without notice. Nothing had ever tried to prevent him from learning, and he had presumed, naïve as it seemed now, that nothing ever would.

He was the best physicist in the world. It was no arrogance, but simple fact. All of them were the best in the world in their specialized fields. Not even Ansem could surpass them now on any individual subject; he was their teacher because he was no worse than second-best at anything he turned his hand to. When it came to diplomacy, to mathematics, to writing, to chemistry, Ansem was far better than Braig would ever be, but Braig was at least as good as Ansem at physics.

The problem was that the study of physics had been very nearly at a standstill for twenty years or more. There were some questions that stumped the best and worst minds equally. Ansem himself had speculated that they had reached the limit of what human investigation could reveal about the forces of their world.

Braig refused to believe that. There had to be something else to learn, some other way to look at the world, if only he could find it. The very idea of accepting a limit was repellant. If he had accepted other people's opinions on what was possible, he would never have gone to school, because no backwoods boy would ever amount to anything depending on his _brains_.

He had thought that Ansem was unlike the people who had told him that, unlike his brothers who had complained about his 'laziness', unlike his mother who had objected to the loss of a worker far more than the loss of a son. Apparently, the great Ansem the Wise was just like them after all.

He knew full well what a risk they were taking, studying this darkness. Braig had been taking risks all his life; he was used to measuring the odds and doing exactly what he wanted anyway. It had almost always worked for him. (Of course, the occasions when it didn't tended to end up spectacularly horribly, usually with an extended stay in the infirmary while his bones knitted.)

This 'darkness' might just turn out to be the key to so much he couldn't yet understand. It might well be the mysterious component of the universe they had all missed; no one had factored it into calculations, as far as he knew, and yet there it was, as large as life and twice as natural. Study of the darkness might be to his generation what study of the atom had been to his great-grandparents', just as violent and beautiful in the end. There were so many possibilities, and Ansem was denying them all, claiming that it was _too dangerous_.

_Everything_ he studied was dangerous. _Gravity_ was dangerous, but that was no reason to avoid it, even if it were possible. Yes, it was a risk, but think of the potential benefit!

Besides, discovery was always dangerous. It meant using an untested technique (because this _was_ the test) on the very fabric of the universe and hoping that reality conformed to theoretical models. Most of the people who had pioneered nuclear fission had died of radiation poisoning if a mistimed explosion hadn't gotten them first, the inventors of the airship had died in a crash, and Braig didn't even want to think about some of the case studies in Even's medical textbook. Holding back from what might be a world-altering discovery out of personal fear was worse than cowardly, it was betrayal of everyone who had died to understand what he could for granted.

The safe and sure path had never led to a brilliant discovery, nor had it ever led Braig to what he most wanted. It was a foregone conclusion that it would not lead Braig to a brilliant discovery. No, he had always known that only something risky, something no one else had ever dared, would bring him what he craved. He wanted to prove that all the limitations people had tried to put on him had been wrong. He wanted glory, at any cost.

Ansem was refusing to let them study the darkness. The world was out there for the taking, true understanding hovering within reach, and he shrank back from it. He claimed over and over that it was too dangerous, that it would lead to nothing but suffering, but when pressed, he could never say what made him draw that conclusion. Braig had heard him say so far too often, and each time his words sounded more and more like the words of a coward. Cowardice was the worst sin in Braig's mind, as daring was the greatest virtue. He didn't think he could respect a man who gave in to irrational fears so easily.

That was the real unfairness, the real sting: he had devoted fifteen years of his life to Ansem, wanting to help him, wanting to be like him. He had idolized Ansem. Now the idol was falling apart, and he wasn't sure he liked what he saw inside it.

Xehanort was right, he thought bitterly. Ansem was just an image, an idea, the father and teacher he had never had before. Braig was no longer the thirteen-year-old boy who had worshipped that image. He was a man, adult in all ways save this one: he still clung to the image created before a boy's eyes. It was time to let that image go. Then he could go on to do his own work, make his own great discovery, without the shadow of Ansem looming over him. It was time, and past time, to grow up. The world was full of so many things that could be his, if he took this one last step.

He was frightened, but Braig had never and would never give in to fear.


End file.
